Sunday Morning Playlist

Hard Life - Will Oldham

One of the saddest, most beautiful songs of all time.

American Made - Lordz of Brooklyn

I've dug these guys since I was 17. One of the most underrated rap acts ever. Probably the closest to a true hip-hop patriotic anthem. Reminds of Goodfellas and Once Upon a Time in America simultaneously. Awesome guitar loop and the little kid at the end repeating part of the refrain is both glorious and slightly disturbing. This track will always remind me of kissing this girl named Fernita on my grandmother's porch in Virginia, shooting off a friend's pistol at abandoned cars, and drinking Mad Dog.

Avantcore - Busdriver

Busdriver always makes me wish Boogie Down Productions was still around. If this cat had been rolling back in when hip-hop was less about pulling fake gangster routines and more about empowering the People. I dig this cat. He's got what made KRS-1, Chuck D, and Rev Run the Kings of Rock back in the day - brains and the brawn on the mike.

I Got a Man - Positive K

Okay...I dig Positive K. I still Jump Around. I dig 3rd Bass and Digible Planets. I secretly miss cross-colors, cats with gumby cuts, and Malcolm X hats. Can't help it. If you can't dig it.

Sanity - Bad Religion

"Sanity is a full time job..." one of the greatest lines in punker history. While Mike Ness fed my soul, Dr. Greg Graffin, Ph.D., fed my mind and made me feel less self-conscious about questing for the truth in knowledge.

Time - Tom Waits

One of my Top 5 Waits songs of all time. Perfect Sunday Morning song for drinking coffee, smoking cheap cigarettes, and updating a blog. I wish I'd tried to talk my sister and her husband into playing this at their wedding.

My Mind's Playing Tricks on Me - The Geto Boys

"I sit alone in my four-cornered room, staring at candles..." Another deep line. There are so many cats I've known - hoodlums I grew up with, the bangers I lived next to in Greeley, the former gang members I mentored in Morro Bay - who still glorify the violence that's wasting so many precious lives in America, in places like Liberia, the Sudan. This is the Post Truamatic Stress track. I play it to remind myself that I'm a survivor, not a victim. The memory of the victims of violence keeps me going.

I've Got an Idea for a Movie - the Vandals

Every time I hear any track by the Vandals, I have to dance. I could be in church, in my boxers, in the shower, eating green eggs and ham with the Son of Sam, or at my own funeral. The secret to Jesus bringing Lazarus back from the dead: he was humming